Los Angeles history

Matt Weinstock, Nov. 13, 1959

November 13, 2009 | 4:00
pm

“Artists Always Seem More Sensitive.”

The End Is in Sight

Bravely ignoring the tear-inducing smog which was seeping in through the woodwork, the gentlemen of the copy desk yesterday, between, editions, went into their daily seminar titled "Whither Drifteth?" Their despondent conclusion, delivered to my desk, is as follows:

"Meteorological trends indicate it will never rain again in Los Angeles. If this becomes fact, it is safe to predict that by 1975 there will be no one left except perhaps a few standby guards. Their job will be to keep an eye on public buildings to see if they dry up and blow away or disintegrate in the smog. their reports will be of value, of course, when examined in some future era by scientists seeking to determine wha hoppen. You are welcome to this information free."

Now, maybe that'll bring rain and chase away the nasty olefins.

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SPEAKING OF EYE IRRITATION, a friendly gentleman phoned the APCD yesterday and inquired about the smog. Explaining he had arrived recently from the Midwest, he said, "This isn't as bad as it was in Chicago and if it doesn't get any worse we'll stay in Hollywood." Some days, he went on, his eyes burned but his wife's didn't. Other days his wife's eyes burned but his didn't.

The APCD man congratulated him, saying, "Seems to me you have the perfect smog marriage."

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THOUGHT FOR PROBERSWe've heard the toppers of TVInsist on purest honesty-But, wouldn't you call it controversialWhether there's truth in each commercial? --F. MENDELSOHN JR.

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ONLY IN L.A. -- Dorothy Odin of Pacific Palisades reported to police the other day that someone had stolen her car. "I can't understand why," she said. "It's a 1948 Dodge with 102,000 miles on it." A few hours later she had it back. Two young men had been observed acting suspiciously at a westside market center. When police gave chase the pair grabbed Old Ironsides, of all things, as a getaway car. They didn't get away.

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EYEBROWS RAISED knowingly here and there when George Hunter White, West Coast federal narcotics agent, testifying before the U.S. Senate subcommittee, criticized the LAPD.

"The police here are missing the boat," he said. "They shouldn't close a case simply with the arrest of a peddler. When a peddler is arrested, the game is just beginning. We're after the original source."

White, former L.A. newspaperman who has achieved world-wide note for tough dealing in narcotics enforcement, isn't afraid of anybody.

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TV TALK programs flourish in New York as well as here and recently Louis Untermeyer, noted anthologist, wit and author of "Lives of the Poets," appeared on Henry Morgan's show.

Morgan, renowned bad boy of broadcasting, asked, "How old are you?" Untermeyer looked at his watch and said he was 74.

"You don't look it," Morgan said, "My father is 74 and he looks 96."

"If I were your father," Untermeyer said, "I'd look 96, too."

::

AT RANDOM -- A group of Water and Power employees will leave today on a four-day, 1,100-mile tour of the department's widespread reservoirs, power plants and transmission lines. They'll travel on a chartered bus at their own expense. There's dedication to duty . . . A youngster in Joe Hecht's store said he was learning about the history of Texas at school and knew the names of two cities -- "Sam Houston and Sam Antonio" . . . There's a sequence in "The Last Angry Man" in which a man producing a TV show about Paul Muni, a physician of great integrity, exults, "I'll make television history!" The sponsor says quietly, "A good show will suffice" . . . Leo Katcher's solution to the cranberry mess: Put filters on them . . . Grace Garrett's answer to the dilemma, in a word, is applesauce. She means it. Of course, Grace is the noted baby sitter who confided to Groucho Marx recently that she put catsup on raspberry pie.